I, for one, believe you're on the wrong track trying to imagine a link between the old 6502 and the ARM.

You'll find there are more differences than similarities between the current ARM products and the old 6502. The architecture, design philosophy, etc, reflected in the 6502 are so different from that apparent in the ARM series, I doubt they have more in common that that they are both processors.

Before you mentioned 'em these "Acorn" computers were unknown to me. That's not to say that the late-'70's generation computers left the European market "insignificant," though, on a dollar sales basis, it certainly was until much later. By 1985, 8080, MC680x, 6502, and Z80 were pretty much on their last legs as far as microcomputer applications were concerned, simply because of the 6801, 8051, and others of that ilk. People who wanted a "real" computer used MC68000, i80x86, etc.

The 6502, because it "bought" so much market share here in the U.S. during the mid-late '70's, was a VERY popular microprocessor. It was easy to use, easy to program, and, in general, faster in the same applications, clock for clock, than the quite similar MC680x types, yes, including the much later 6809. Moreover, Synertek, one of MOS Technology's competitors, produced a 4 MHz version in '78, so if speed was needed, there it was. I used selected 6502 chips at nearly 5 MHz in a terminal, back then.

The guys who designed the i8080 later went off to form Zilog and build the Z80. Likewise, some of the guys who designed th MC6800 later formed the MOS Technology team that designed the 650x core. I once met their team manager, Chuck Peddle, though it didn't mean much to me at the time.

As I said in a previous post, the fellows who designed those chips were designing silicon implementations, while the ARM people are selling IP. ARM doesn't make chips. Naturally their goals are different.

RE